Except for the date.
Back when I was married, before Lara left me, I never could remember dates without setting my phone. Birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays just didn’t stick in my head.
Then a damn wendigo wiped out four people I loved and sent my life into a tailspin. That’s what it took to make me remember. And today was that day.
I sighed when I stopped by the photo over the mantle. We had taken it right before we suited up to go out. Five guys, grinning like fools, arms slung over each other’s shoulders in easy camaraderie. No clue what was about to hit them.
Closing my eyes, I turned away. Fuck beer. Tonight belonged to JD.
Building a fire made sense. The night turned cold, and I wouldn’t be getting any sleep. The remote clicked, and The History Channel came on TV, not that I planned to watch it, but it beat silence. Demon padded up and put his head on my lap as if he knew I needed a friend. I stroked his slick black fur absently, with my thoughts far away. After a moment, his ears pricked up, and he ran to the window, then barked.
“Shut up, Demon,” I replied, wondering if he’d spotted a possum.
Just as I debated which frozen entree to sacrifice to the fires of Moloch—aka my finicky oven—I heard a knock at the door.
My cabin is down a dirt lane on the outskirts of Atlantic, which is to say, the middle of fucking nowhere. I don’t get door-to-door salespeople. Hell, I’m lucky the mailman delivers. So I did what any self-respecting person in my position would do.
I pulled my Glock and edged along the wall to see who was on the porch.
“Put the gun down, Mark. We know you’re there.”
I turned on the porch light and saw Blair and Chiara Hamilton standing in front of my door with a hot pizza, a box of pastries, and a Cards Against Humanity deck.
Blair’s ex-military, and though she’s about six inches shorter than me, I’d bet on her in a fight. For one thing, she’s not quite thirty, while I’m feeling every bit of thirty-five. Blair looks like she should be playing volleyball on some campus, with her dark hair back in a thick braid and that fresh-faced, no-pretense kind of tough pretty. Chiara only stood as tall as Blair’s shoulder, with long dark hair, brown eyes, and olive skin. They’d been married for a couple of years now, though they’d been together since high school.
“We brought pizaaaaaaa,” Chiara coaxed, drawing out the word and waving her hand to waft the scent closer.
“C’mon with the door already,” Blair said. “If I had nuts, they’d be frozen by now.”
I opened the door and ushered them in, still a little flummoxed at the sudden company. “Don’t take this wrong, but why are you here?” I asked, although my eyes went straight to the pizza and the pastries. Chiara’s family owns an Italian bakery, and their stuff is to die for.
Chiara looked at me as if I were a bit slow. “Because it’s that day, and friends don’t let friends drink all the JD by themselves,” she added with a grin.
Bless their little gizzards. For a moment, my throat closed up. Then Blair delivered a clap to my shoulder that reminded me that she’d never lost her Army-strong fitness level.
“Can we eat the pizza before it congeals? I’m hungry,” Blair said. Demon acted like any self-respecting guard dog and surveilled the food.
Chiara led the way to my kitchen table and pulled down plates and glasses. Blair set the pizza and pastries down, and I got the bottle of JD out of the cabinet, glad it was a new one. We helped ourselves to pizza, and Chiara poured the whiskey.
Blair took a seat next to her wife, sitting just close enough that their knees touched under the table. “How’d the job in the swamp go?” Chiara asked.
“It’s done. But I’ve lost my taste for sushi,” I replied, sliding two slices of pizza onto my plate and eyeing the pastries, which remained on the counter.
“You hate sushi,” Blair countered.
“I hate it more now. But yeah, I ganked Marjory and sent her sky high.”
Chiara raised a perfectly-groomed eyebrow. “Marjory?”
I shrugged. “No idea what the thing was, and that seemed like as good a name as any.”
“It has to sound like fake Latin,” Blair argued. “Like in those old cartoons. You know, maybe like ‘Monsterus Marjorious.’”
Clair rolled her eyes. “You watch too much TV.”
Blair elbowed her. “Those are classics!”
I filled them in on the hunt, and at one point, Blair nudged Chiara, who dug a five-dollar bill out of the pocket of her jeans. “What?” I asked.
Chiara laughed. “Blair bet me that you couldn’t handle the swamp monster without explosives.”
“And you bet against that? Have you met me?” I finished off my first piece of pizza.
“Yep. I send you a monthly bill. Higher than usual this month. I had to special-order that harpoon,” Blair replied. Blair inherited Hamilton Hardware in downtown Conneaut Lake, a hometown institution for nearly a hundred years. Chiara runs the New Age/bookstore/coffee shop next door and runs a web development company out of their apartment over the store. In her spare time, Chiara runs Dark Web research for hunters like me, and Blair keeps an invitation-only back room to the hardware store stocked with our kind of hunting supplies.
“That harpoon saved my bacon,” I replied. “But I’m gonna need a couple more spears for it. Marjory didn’t give them back.” I ran a hand over my chin and realized I hadn’t shaved. My beard came in reddish, even though my hair was straw-colored blond to go with light blue eyes. Mom always said I had the “map of Poland” on my face, which I took to mean I strongly resembled my relatives back in the “Old Country” that my immigrant grandfather talked about.
“Yes, you’re scruffy,” Chiara confirmed, snickering. “Nerf-herder.”
“You try herding nerfs and see how you like it,” I shot back. “Worse than cats.”
She pushed a glass of Jack toward me. “Drink. Are you due in the garage tomorrow?”
Wojcik Auto Body supplied most of my income, although Father Leo made sure the Occulatum, a secret branch of the Church that oversaw those who fought the supernatural, paid me a fair stipend. Of late, I’d been spending more time on monsters and less time on Mustangs. Pete Kennedy, my awesome shop manager, kept the place running while I was out saving the world. “Pete’s covering for me tomorrow,” I replied. “Like he does every year.”
Blair and Chiara knew the story about the wendigo. They’d seen pictures of my dad, Uncle Christoph, my cousin Greg, and my brother Sean, and listened while I recounted our adventures until I was too wasted to talk anymore. Over the years, Blair had told me stories about missions gone bad during her stint in the Middle East, and how sometimes shit happened. Chiara told me food makes everything better, and she drank me under the table.
I’d been the only one to survive the hunt that day, but that wasn’t really true. The guy who got carried out of the woods with half his blood gone wasn’t the same one who went in. I didn’t just lose my innocence about the kinds of creatures and things that stalked the shadows. I lost my sister-in-law, Amy, who couldn’t forgive me for surviving when her husband and only son didn’t. And two years later, I lost my wife Lara, who decided I’d had long enough to grieve and wasn’t getting on with life fast enough, so she moved on without me. Fucking wendigo.
“Hey. Mark.” Chiara must have picked up on my thousand-yard stare. “It’s okay to miss them, but don’t forget, you’ve got people here now who care about you.”
“Or, as they told me before we shipped out, ‘If you’re lucky, you’ll come back, but you won’t ever be the same,’” Blair added.
I sighed and tossed off the whiskey. “I know. And…I feel like I should be past this. Sometimes I am. And then the date rolls around and—”
“That’s why we’re here,” Chiara said. She put another piece of pizza on my plate, along with a couple of homemade pastries. “Eat.”
They filled me in on what was going on with the hardware store and th
e bookstore, how the coven that met every week to “play Bunko” in the social room was doing, and the latest escapades of Chiara’s multitude of brothers and large extended family. Every time my glass emptied, it mysteriously filled without my intervention. By the time Blair pulled out the Cards Against Humanity deck, I was a warm, boneless lump on the couch and Demon lay snoring at my feet.
“You still going to the dinner at the fire hall tomorrow night?” Blair asked.
“Shit. I forgot. Yeah. Should be done with my hangover by then.”
Chiara rolled her eyes. “Glad to see you schedule these things.”
“Louie Marino’s looking for you,” Blair continued. “Says he might have a case for you.”
I snorted. “He owes me a case of Iron City.”
“Not that kind of case. Haunting or something.”
I downed another shot of the whiskey. “One thing at a time. We’ll deal with his ghosts tomorrow. My ghosts tonight.”
Chapter 2
My cabin is in between Adamsville and Atlantic, Pennsylvania, two towns that have maybe four hundred people between them. A tornado damn near wiped Adamsville off the map a while back, and it never rebounded. Nice people, hard times. We don’t have fancy coffee shops, and the nearest Walmart is in Conneaut Lake, but we do have a volunteer fire department, and its social hall is one of our community hubs.
Back before that deer hunt changed everything, I used to volunteer. Then I fell apart, and after that, monster hunting took up all my spare time. So I quit the department, but I’m still friends with the crew. Hell, I went to high school with half of them. Knew the rest from when I used to go to church, before I left my faith and most of my blood in the snow on that cold December evening.
The VFD put on a good monthly dinner. Most of the money went for upkeep on the trucks, but they always had another worthy local cause, like a school, library, or playground to support as well. The food was always good, and plenty of it, but most folks went because we knew we could get caught up on the local news and gossip.
Pete closed up the shop a little early to meet me and get over to the fire department before the line got too long. The social hall isn’t fancy, just a cement block building with a coat of paint slapped on the walls and a tile floor, but it’s a popular spot for wedding receptions, baby showers, funeral meals, and graduation parties. It’s that or one of the church fellowship buildings, and the fire department lets you have beer.
“Smells good,” Pete said as we walked in from the parking lot. Five o’clock, and the senior citizens had already beaten us to the line. A big plate of whatever was on the menu cost eight bucks, but seniors got it for six. That led to a septuagenarian stampede, and I knew better than to get in the way. Those old ladies had sharp elbows and heavy purses.
“Petey Kennedy! Is that you?” Mrs. McCarthy turned around and laid a wrinkled hand on Pete’s arm. Pete’s a couple of inches taller than I am, so he comes in at about six foot six, and built like a linebacker. He’s only two years younger, but somehow, I managed to miss having Mrs. McCarthy in grade school—Pete wasn’t so lucky.
“Yes, ma’am,” Pete answered, dropping his head like he’d been caught playing hooky. I doubt anyone outside of his extended family had called him “Petey” since he shot up to basketball player height.
“You tell your mother that we missed her at the book club,” Mrs. McCarthy chided. “We only had three ladies show up, and that left us with too much punch to drink.”
Chiara’s mother had gone to that book club for a while, and always came home tipsy, so I don’t know what was in the punch, but it went beyond ginger ale and sherbet.
“I’ll pass that along,” Pete said, managing to blush. “She’s been busy, what with Katie’s wedding coming up and all.”
Mrs. McCarthy shook her head. “You’ve all grown up way too fast! Where does the time go?” She patted my arm for good measure. “Good to see you too, Mark. I still miss your mother when the ladies play cards.”
“I miss her, too.” Mom had passed on many years before that hunt, so at least she’d been spared having to deal with the loss.
One of Mrs. McCarthy’s friends drew her attention off as the line moved up, and Pete and I were left to ourselves again.
“Don’t say it, Wojcik,” he warned.
I’d tease him about “Petey,” except that I’d had more than my share of “whoa-chick,” as people often mangled my name. It’s “voy-chick,” but by now, I answer to anything close.
Tonight’s dinner was roast chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, a small salad, fresh yeast rolls, and a sliver of pumpkin pie. The firefighters didn’t cook the meal—the auxiliary did that, made up of the wives, husbands, siblings, and friends of the crew—but they did show up to circulate and chew the fat. Pete and I took our plates over to an empty table and went to get some of their wicked-strong coffee, then sat down and waited for the rest of our gang to show.
I spotted Blair and Chiara, along with a couple of Chiara’s brothers coming in the door. The place was starting to fill up. Children ran between the tables, babies cried, and the buzz of conversation rose to a dull roar. Before I’d gotten more than a few bites in, Louie Marino dropped into the chair beside me.
“Hey, Mark, I need to talk to you.” Louie and I went to school together. He’s a cop out in Linesville, which is just up the road. Louie knows the score about what I do in my “other” job, and so does Pete. I come back battered and bruised too often to hide the monster hunting from Pete, and Louie and I often run into each other in the wee hours of the morning in odd places, so cluing him in cut down on how much I spent on bail.
“Blair and Chiara told me you were looking for me.” I kept shoveling food. I’d beaten down my hangover to a dull roar, and my abused stomach finally decided it needed solid fuel.
“You ever been to the fishing cabins on French Creek, around Cochranton?” he asked.
I nodded. “Long time ago. Fishing’s not my thing, but I went with Sean and some of his buddies a couple of times. Somebody’s parents had a place. Small, but nice.” French Creek wound down from New York all the way to the Allegheny River. Along the way, it provided some mighty fine water for boating, kayaking, and fishing, and little two- or three-room cabins dotted the banks, places families returned every summer for generations. They weren’t fancy, built and maintained on a factory income, but they were a working man’s getaway.
“So I’ve got a friend,” Louie said, leaning forward and resting his right arm on the table as he shifted his seat to face me. “Ronnie Danvers. You know him?” I shook my head. “Anyhow, he bought this place that had been on the market for a while, kinda run down, picked it up for a steal. He figured he’d make it his man cave, fix it up for poker nights, and get in some fishing time, too. Only no one told him it was haunted.”
I raised an eyebrow. “What makes him think it’s haunted?” There’s plenty of scary shit out there, lurking in the shadows, but none of it works like in the TV shows. I can’t count how many times I’ve gone in to investigate reports of ghosts, only to find it’s actually squirrels in the ductwork, raccoons in the crawl space, or birds in the chimney.
“He saw Eli Wickers sitting on the dock, fishing.”
I gave him a questioning look, prompting him to continue.
“Eli died of a heart attack last fall.”
“Okay, that’s a little strange. He’s sure it was Eli?”
Louie nodded. “Yeah, except Ronnie says Eli looked solid—and really dead. Smelled bad, too.”
“How sure are you that Eli actually died?”
“I went to his funeral.”
“And he’s back?” I asked.
Louie shrugged. “According to Ronnie. And before you ask, he’s clean. He wasn’t smoking anything that made him see dead people.”
Pete snickered. I rolled my eyes. That line quit being funny a long time ago.
“All right. I’ll look into it.”
Louie slid a key across the
table, and I pocketed it. “Thanks. If it were anyone but Ronnie, I’d think they were pulling my leg, but he’s pretty freaked about it.”
“You think someone is playing a gag on him? Prank wars?”
“If I didn’t know what kind of stuff you run into, I’d say yes. That’s the easier explanation. But Ronnie says there’s no one who would be pranking him, and he just bought the place after it stood empty for a while. He wants to get in and clean it up. Right now, it’s still the way Eli left it, and Ronnie says it’s a mess.”
“Still got Eli’s stuff in it? That might be part of the problem right there,” I mused. “Ghosts don’t like to let go of things. I’ll go over tomorrow,” I added, stealing a glance at Pete, who nodded with a mouthful of chicken. “See if we can’t evict the ghost so he can get the place in shape for spring.”
“Thanks,” Louie said and clapped me on the shoulder as he stood. “You still planning on helping with the Bingo game at Father Leo’s on Saturday?”
I nodded. “Count me in as one of the bouncers. Last time, I had to break up a fight between two old ladies in their eighties because someone took someone else’s lucky chair. Had to get a tetanus shot after one of them sank her fake choppers into my arm.”
Pete snickered, and I smacked him backhanded across the chest. “Yeah, go ahead and laugh, but they’re vicious, especially when it’s double-or-nothing.”
“I’ll ask Father Leo for combat pay,” Louie said with a laugh.
“Let me know how that works out.”
Pete waited until Louie was gone. “You think it’s really a ghost?”
I shrugged. “Could be, especially if the cabin was Eli’s happy place and he didn’t want to leave. If his stuff is there, something’s probably anchoring him, so I’ll find it, give it a salt and burn, and heave-ho the ghost.” I made it sound easy. It rarely was.
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